You know that moment of piercing pain that you feel after someone rips your heart out?
Or That exhausting feeling after realizing you put so much time, and energy into something that has disappeared right before your eyes?
Well, that’s what we would call a broken heart. It hurts so bad, you may feel like your going to die. My question is, is it possible to die from a broken heart? According to the “Broken Heart Syndrome” it is. Usually when a person looses a loved one, they go through stress, and extremely deep sorrow, which can take a life threatening toll on the body.
A recent study showed that the chances of experiencing a stroke or a heart attack doubles within the first 30 days after loosing a loved one. The study included 30,447 people who’s partners were deceased and 83,588 people who’s partners were alive (the controls). The research team measured the rate of stroke and heart attack in people over the age 60 who have just lost their partner, and compared the results to those who still had a living partner. They found that 16% of people who just lost their partner experienced a stroke or a heart attack, while only 8% of people who still had their partner. They also found that after the 30 days, the higher risk begins to decrease.
I think this study does a good job of proving broken heart to be deathly. It increases chance of stroke or heart attack, in which some may live through and some may not. However, I still wanted to know what exactly it was that caused these strokes and heart attacks. I found that stress cardiomyopathy is when the left ventricle is weakened. Stress cardiomyopathy essentially feels like a heart attack and has all of the same symptoms, however, unlike a heart attack, stress cardiomyopathy shows no signs of clogged arteries.
In the above picture, you will see the left ventricle is larger in the Broken Heart than it is in the Normal Heart. That’s because the left ventricle in the Broken Heart puffs out with each heart beat.
Source:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/broken-heart-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20034635
http://medicaimaging.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/can-you-really-die-of-a-broken-heart/
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-science-behind-broken-heart-syndrome-201202144256
http://www.today.com/health/died-broken-heart-science-behind-close-couple-deaths-8C11018276
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/kidding-ourselves-book_n_5359253.html
I enjoyed this post a lot because of the personal connections that I’ve found with it. My family had family friends, an elderly couple, who lived into their early 90s which was incredibly impressive. The man was the one who died first and then surprisingly only a week or two after the woman died as well. I really liked this article because a lot of people claimed that the woman died of a broken heart, but I never really took that hypothesis seriously. Now, reading this it seems that they could have been right. It’s interesting that losing a loved one could put that much of a physical and emotional toll on your body that you completely shut down internally, but it does make sense in other aspects.
Like you I always believed that it is possible to die from a broken heart. I was interested in the study you found. The fact that ones “chances of experiencing stroke or a heart attack doubles within the first 30 days after loosing a loved one” stunned me. Recently a close family friend of mine passed away from cancer and less than a month later her husband died of a heart attack. It is both sad and sweet to think that strong love can be powerful enough to have an effect on the human body.
I really enjoyed this article because I find it very fascinating learning about the effects individuals play in each others lives. However, I think in this scenario, dying of a broken heart is correlation rather than causation. Although it is common for people to die within short spans of one another, death does not appear out of nowhere. In the article, http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/261707431.html, Allie Shah states “for senior citizens, this type of sudden heart injury can be especially dangerous when combined with pre-existing conditions and their age.” It is reasonable for people to die of a broken heart when stress and anxiety imposes on already sustained health issues. Dying of a broken heart in your early 30s would probably be much less likely. Therefore I think dying of a broken heart would be a confounding variable more than a direct response.
I have actually heard of this happening to people. I always wondered if it was just a coincidence, but you have strong evidence that leads me to believe otherwise. This article talks about a couple who died within eleven hours of each other. It is hard to believe that would be due to a coincidence or to chance, and I believe there really could be a broken heart syndrome.
I agree with the comment before, this is very subjective due to the kind of person going through the break up. That being said the statistics that you have posted to in fact support your hypothesis which makes this topic interesting for the fact that it may be true in some cases is mind boggling. I have heard of things like this holding more truth to elderly people who loose their loved ones of 40+ years. I have heard stories of elderly people dying a couple months after loosing their spouse due to the deep sorrow they go through they seem to give up because their loved one was what kept them going.
I find this post very interesting. I think the statistics you gave do support your hypothesis, however I feel like with a topic such as this, it is very subjective to the person who is losing a loved one. Some people have a much easier time letting go of someone than others. A interesting statistic to find would be what other affects in the brain have on a person after losing a loved one, and if those affects lead to any other serious conditions.